Game Studies and Roguelikes

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About

Welcome to my site! I’m Dr Mark R Johnson. As far as I can tellI’m currently the only person in the world who cuts across academic game studies, indie game development, and world class competitive gaming. I’m a postdoctoral fellow in game studies in the Digital Creativity Hub at the University of York (UK), an independent game developer and co-host of the Roguelike Radio podcast, and an ex-professional gamer currently pursuing a number of arcade gaming world records. I’m also working on my first monograph, The Unpredictability of Gameplay, to be published by Bloomsbury Academic!

For the last five years I’ve updated this blog every weekend, and intend to continue doing so until the heat death of the universe. If you want to see what I’m up to, the best way is to either read this blog or follow me on Twitter, where I post lots of stuff about game design, game studies, and URR’s development. If you fancy employing me or having me come to give a talk, send me an email at mark @ this domain, and my full CV is available on request.

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ACADEMIC (Monographs)

“The Unpredictability of Gameplay” (Upcoming), Bloomsbury Academic.

ACADEMIC (Papers/Book Chapters)

To be filled in once I check some publication rights…

ACADEMIC (Conferences)

I’ve spoken at dozens of games conferences including GDC Europe, DiGRA, FDG, the International Conference on Computational Creativity, the Canadian Game Studies Association, AISB AI & Games, Nucl.AI, and many others, on topics ranging from qualitative procedural generation to Japanese arcade culture, and interactive storytelling to ASCII game semiotics.

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PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

I’m the sole author of this blog (1,000,000+ lifetime hits) and co-host of the popular podcast Roguelike Radio, which has also recently reached 1m+ lifetime hits.

I’ve given invited talks at a large range of public gaming events and undergraduate courses, such as Norwich Gaming Festival, the University of Lincoln, the University of Bedfordshire, ProcJam, the National Videogame Arcade, and many others.

I’ve been interviewed live on BBC World News about eSports to an audience of almost a hundred million, and cited on BBC News on the same topic; I think academic engagement with the media is absolutely essential, and I’m always open to invitations for comment.

I’ve also written pieces for a number of gaming magazines, websites, and academic blogs on a range of topics:

I design/program/develop Ultima Ratio Regum, a “classic” roguelike game written in Python. Its narrative and themes are inspired by the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, and Wu Ming.

As well as providing the challenging gameplay experience one expects from roguelikes, I want to get players thinking intellectually about other issues such as historiography, cryptography, philosophical idealism, linguistics, and many others. It has been in development for nearly five years and have completed the “worldbuilding” portion of the game, moving (at last!) into gameplay.

Ultima Ratio Regum can be found on Facebook, Twitter at UltimaRegum, on IndieDB, and has been reported on in a number of gaming news outlets. I’ve also been interviewed for Rock Paper Shotgun and various others, featured several times in PC Gamer, and plan to start displaying the game at conventions and independent game events in the near future.

From 2005-2007 I played Counterstrike:Source, and by 2007 was very close to being able to meaningfully compete at a national level, until I then discovered poker, after which from 2008-2011 I was a professional poker player, playing close to 2,000,000 hands lifetime.

In recent years I have begun pursuing the world records in a number of “bullet hell”/danmaku games, which will be posted here when achieved. I currently hold four world records in the genre, making me one of the most accomplished danmaku players in the world outside of Japan, and I hope to reach at least half a dozen world records before I’m thirty.

Once I’m thirty and have to retire from twitch/reflex competitive gaming… who knows?